1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to home gardening tools and more particularly to a blade mounted on a shaft driven by a gas engine as part of a powered edger and adapted so the edger is useful as a power hoe.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The practice of gardening and yard care commonly requires breaking up the surface of the ground along the edges of flower beds and gardens either to trim the flower bed or garden or to remove weeds. In the prior art, home gardeners have used hand tools, such as hoes, for this purpose. Hoe have been manufactured in an assortment of configurations (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,771,019 issued to Zeitz on Nov. 20, 1956; 2,383,388 issued to Hughes on Aug. 21, 1945; 2,291,144 issued to Brownsey on July 28, 1942; 2,201,436 issued to Jones on May 21, 1940; 1,901,778 issued to Schlag on Mar. 14, 1933; 1,688,971 issued to Kammerer on Oct. 23, 1928; 1,342,392 issued to Oleen on June 1, 1920; 1,210,100 issued to Pottorf on Dec. 26, 1916; and British Pat. No. 749,772 issued to Henderson on May 30, 1956). Such hoes are manually operated and include a cutting portion attached to a long handle. By forcing the cutting portion along the ground in one direction by means of the handle, the cutting portion breaks up the surface of the dirt.
Use of manually-operated garden tools, including hoes taught by the prior art, involves exhausting physical labor expended over a great amount of time. As a result, numerous labor-saving power tools have been developed.
One such power tool, the gasoline-engine powered edger, has gained rapid acceptance since its introduction on the market. The edger is used to trim lawns around the edges of sidewalks, curbs and gardens and includes a rapidly rotating flat blade that rotates about a horizontal shaft. The shaft, in turn, is connected to the engine by a belt and pully system. The entire operating unit is mounted on a mobile frame that is pushed by the operator by means of a handle extending above the rear of the frame. By aligning the plane in which the blade rotates over the portion of the lawn to be edged and then lowering the blade, the operator can trim the lawn simply by pushing the edger along the path to be edged.
Similar power tools have been developed to perform many of the operations involved in home gardening and yard care. The manually-operated hoe, however, remains as the only reasonably economical means for breaking up the surface of the ground along the edges of gardens and flower beds for trimming and removing weeds. One gasoline-powered tool, the power tiller, is commonly used for cultivating large areas of ground. The tiller, however, having a plurality of rotating tines that dig beneath the surface of the ground for the purpose of loosening the dirt is too large for use as a garden and flower bed trimmer and weeder. The cut of the tines is too deep and can damage the roots of the plants in the garden or flower bed. Also, the size of power tillers prohibits the use in small areas. Furthermore, the cost of an additional power-operated tool puts the tiller beyond the means of most home owners.
Thus, there has been a need for a device that would eliminate the exhaustive labor required in breaking up the surface of the soil along the edges of gardens and flower beds that does not require the purchase of an additional expensive power garden tool.